Great CRPG, average MMO, good game

gurugeorge

The game has problems.  Ability delay was the potential game-killer IMHO, but it looks like that's almost sorted now, with the 1.1.1 patch (at least, playing my Shadow last night was a positive joy compared to the glue-wading it was before the patch).

There are also lots of bugs and glitches, a few QOL issues (mostly UI).  But that's normal for an MMO, I've never known one to launch without a few problems like that.

However, all that said, fundamentally the game is sound.  Its major innovation is grouped dialogues.  It may not sound like much, but if you're a player who weighs immersion highly in your list of desiderata for a game, then you'll get something special out of this game that you can't get out of any other.

Basically, it's "KOTOR with mates".  That's all it is - and I think that's all it was ever intended to be.  If that's what you expected from this game, you'll be well pleased.  If not, then ... well, I don't know what to say.  It's BW, what did you expect?  As both a single-player and grouped experience, the immersive puppet show and dialogue choosing experience is generally AAA class.

Of course SWTOR also ticks most of the boxes for the "standard themepark MMO" features as well (several ladders of achievement, grouped content of several types, some quite hard), and while some of that stuff isn't quite ready for prime time, judging by BW's response to the ability delay problem, I'm pretty sure the "standard MMO" side of it will be tuned and tweaked till it's nice and smooth.  Again, fundamentally, the MMO side of things is fairly well made, if not exactly earth-shatteringly innovative.  Content-wise, there's enough content for the moment, but BW will need to inject some more  endgame stuff roundabout 3 or 4 months.

The space game:  I would have preferred something more like Freelancer or XvT, but as a minigame, the space combat is a fun enough diversion.  It's also very lucrative for xp and money, which tempts you to give it a go.

Mainly, when SWTOR is all working properly, grouped PvE combat certainly is lots of fun and does require some team co-ordination, so it's really just a question of BW getting it all working smoothly.

With PvP, I do PvP in games but haven't done much in this game so far, except casually in the world zones.  With the ability delay problem, it's been hard to judge.  It seems that, as with everything else in the game, when it works, it's fun and satsifying, but it can be a bit frustrating when it doesn't, which at this stage is still a bit too often.  Also, I've heard that there are serious problems with Ilum endgame atm.

But provided the bugs, etc., are ironed out, I think the game has a good future ahead of it.  I doubt BW intended what everyone else thinks they're intending - i.e. to steal subs away from Blizzard's bored WoW players.  I think BW intended to open up a new market to MMOs (more or lesss the way Blizzard themselves did). 

So most of the d000000m predictions are misplaced.  Also, the endgame problems the game has won't be noticed by the majority of players for a few months yet, by which time, judging by the quick response to ability delay, I think BW will hae sorted most of them out. 

B+ from me.  Could have been a bit better, but all things considered, a good game.